October 9, 2008
Is he really so friendly?
Well, we’ve hit the ugly phase of this political campaign, I think that means we’re almost at the end. (Or most likely just right back to the next beginning.) There’s less than a month to go before the vote goes down, Barack Obama is pulling ahead with every collapse of the economy, and John McCain’s campaign is going ever more negative. They’ve amped up the fear mongering and the thinly veiled slander and they’re supporters are growing ever more desperate.
If nothing thus far has convinced people that John McCain and running mate are not fit the take over the country’s leadership, this turn in their strategy should do it. Sure, I know all politicians go negative, make dubious insinuations and tenuously true assertions and try to make their opponent look worse than he or she actually is, but McCain has taken things to the point where it’s nothing but negativity and attacks.
That’s really not an exaggeration either. He’s running no ads about himself. Instead they all disparage Obama. That means he’s doing nothing to articulate his message for what his presidency will mean. His platform’s been out there for a long time, and it’s always been thin on specifics, but instead of adding detail to his plans and proposing his approach to new problems, he’s busy trying to make people feel scared and upset enough by Obama that they will support him.
There’s a couple reasons this is such a horrible thing. It shows that to him winning an election is more important than leading this country. If he felt he had the best plan for the nation and he truly believed in both his ideas and the spirit of democracy, he’d be willing to lay out his plan and hope the majority of the people support him. Instead he’s reduced his message to a running stream of “My friends” followed by an attack at Obama or an easy-to-support goal with no actual plan to accomplish it.
He’s willing to tell people whatever he thinks they want to hear and basically do anything in order to win the election, and the way he’s going about doing it is going to hurt this country he says he loves. His overwhelming negative approach to Obama will resonate with some, and by whipping up as much division as he can, he’ll be souring a portion of the country and further polarizing the nation.
It’s the strategy of the sore loser. If his every clawing and scratching and low blow doesn’t win him this election, he’s damn well going to make it suck for the eventual winner. My friends, if John McCain really loved this country as much as he says he does, he wouldn’t be working so hard to make sure things get worse.